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My external hard drive uses EXT3 and must be read + written by Debian and Windows 7 (home and office boxes)

It used to work like a charm with Ext2IFS on Windows XP, but since this software doesn't support Windows 7, I now feel desperate.

I've Googled a bit, read some Superuser questions :

and tried some suggestions. Here's my experience :

==> With Paragon ExtFs :

  • creates files and folders with the uig/gid "0" on the drive, so once back to Linux, all files belong to root:root. No big trouble, but not very convenient.
  • I don't know how this happened but some day I discovered that the relation between file names and their contents was completely scrambled. No data "lost", no lost file, just file contents randomly "moved" into another file. Had to fsck and restore files from backups. This happened twice, so this Paragon software just gets a NO WAY from me now !

==> With ext2fsd (version 0.53)

  • It works not too bad. When it works : I boot Windows 7, plug my USB drive, it's detected by ext2fsd, I give it a drive letter and can read/write from/to it : GREAT ! But if I unplug my USB drive (what I do by clicking on the systray icon + "unplug storage device..."), then replug it later, it will detect the drive again, but will be unable to give it any drive letter. I've tried to "Remove dead letters", but even though the drive letter becomes available anew, I can't assign it to my drive (like in How do I read the Ext4 partition of my SD card on Windows? ).
  • if I unplug everything and reboot : it works (but this reminds me of the glorious days of windows 9X ;-)
  • if I unplug without reboot : impossible to assign a drive letter :-(

Do you have any suggestions ? Am I misusing ext2fsd ? Any ext3 tuning options ? Any Windows 7 tuning options ?

NB1 : So far, I'm not considering formatting the USB drive.

NB2 : the Linux and Windows 7 boxes are mutually out of reach from each other, so any network-related solution (Samba, FTP, WinSCP, ...) is not possible.

EDIT : the suggested solution, installing IFS-Drive in XPSP2 compatibility mode, didn't work on my side, and caused Windows 7 to crash :-(

However, I've been able to make things work with Ext2FSD. As a reminder, the problem was my drive was recognized only the first time it was plugged, but if unplugged then re-plugged : impossible to mount it anymore. Here's my solution :

  1. Plug the external hard drive
  2. Open the Ext2 Volume manager GUI
  3. Remove dead letters if need be [F9]
  4. Select disk + "Change drive letter" [F4]
  5. Add
  6. Select the drive letter you like
  7. Click "Mount via DefineDosDevice", will be lost after reboot"
  8. "Ok", "Done". Enjoy !
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  • You forgot the golden rule man, never let a windows machine write to a linux drive =) Oct 9, 2014 at 12:41
  • Have you considered ext2fsd.com ? Oct 9, 2014 at 14:15
  • I did considered ext2fsd, trying to make it work correctly was part of the original question ;-)
    – Httqm
    Oct 10, 2014 at 7:06

1 Answer 1

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EXT3 Partitions are used mainly on Linux Based distributions, are not normally accessible by Windows. Windows CAN use:

  • FAT16
  • FAT32
  • NTFS

Though it is possible to use specific drivers to allow windows to read/write EXT3, I would recommend just copying the files onto your Debian base computer, and format the drive to use as FAT32, which can be used by Windows, Linux AND Mac. This will be easier, rather then trying to find other methods. Also, this allows you to use your drive on computers without the driver, allowing accessibility.

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  • 2
    This is misleading. Windows allows you to add additional file systems. Oct 9, 2014 at 14:14
  • @Kevin Panko, as far as I can tell, windows cannot handle any file systems other than NTFS/FAT/FAT32 natively Oct 10, 2014 at 4:15
  • This is right : Windows can not handle EXTx filesystems NATIVELY. But it sure can do it with extra drivers, such as IFS-Drive (fs-driver.org) which worked great on XP.
    – Httqm
    Oct 10, 2014 at 7:10
  • That is true @Httqm. I would still recomend using a FAT32 paritioned hard drive since it is easier, already has native support, and can be used on other Windows computers without the specific driver for EXT3 Oct 10, 2014 at 11:26
  • FAT32 is a bad choice, being limited to files smaller than 4GB. ExFAT and NTFS would be much better
    – phuclv
    Jul 7, 2018 at 17:44

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